A lot of firsts here for me: 1st Castle Lego MOC, ever; 1st large-scale landscaping; 1st entry in an online contest. Special thanks to Mark of Falworth for encouragement to join in the fray!

I was going for suspense here. I wanted to capture the tension present just prior to hostile action taking place, and I wanted to do so while building the story of my character in LCC. The MOC was created to be seen from the POV of Sir Caelan Munro in this picture:

So if you bend down from the minifig POV, you can’t see the outlaws waiting for the ambush, but there are enough suspicious indicators present that it looks like a set up, hence the tension. A short synopsis is that Caelan is trying to recover cattle stolen during a cattle raid, and the chase has led to here, where he must decide whether to pursue them up the dangerous pass through the mountains or to give up.

Wow this is your first castle project?? This is way better than my first! Your structure looks really good and the way you textured the walls looks great. The rock besides also looks fantastic as well as how you placed the terrain and road. Great minifig placement and I love the crest on the base!

Fraslund wrote:Wow this is your first castle project?? This is way better than my first! Your structure looks really good and the way you textured the walls looks great. The rock besides also looks fantastic as well as how you placed the terrain and road. Great minifig placement and I love the crest on the base!Great work!

Thank you for all the compliments; yes I plan on using this crest from now on...

Mark of Falworth wrote:Great first build! The tree, the terrain and the ruined castle are all excellent.You're certainly showing some awesome castle building potential!

Keep it up!

The tree looks great because I followed your most excellent technique, so full credit to you!!!

AK_Brickster wrote:Fantastic first MOC. Lots of nice detailing and texturing.

Looking forward to more from you soon!!

Thank you, hopefully by the CCCX deadline!

Justin M wrote:Wow, for your first Castle build, this is wonderful! Should we all be expecting some more Castle builds from you in the future?

Thanks guys, I'm grateful for the comments! Very kind considering you are all such great builders. If you have any suggestions for improvements I'm definitely open to them. Hoping to get an entry for Forest Life in before the deadline, we'll see!- Gary